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A recently released study finds that students who eat at dorm cafeterias on the University of Iowa campus may not be very happy with the quality of food offered, or the variety of available meals at these locations.

A group of students at the University of Iowa conducted a survey on student’s satisfaction with the cafeterias at the Burge and Hillcrest dormitories. This study, conducted completely by email, focused on the quality of food, and the overall satisfaction among students who eat at these facilities. Through a series of questions, this survey asked students to assess the freshness, taste, and services of these cafeterias. The results imply that there may be a lot of unhappy students; students who might otherwise use the cafeterias more.

This survey asked respondents to answer questions about the quality of the food, the taste, the variety, services, and prices. The survey even gave respondents a chance to voice their opinions with an open ended question at the end: “How can the cafeteria improve their food and service to attract more students?”

While not all the results point to a general dissatisfaction with the cafeterias (for instance, the majority of the respondents agree that the food is “well cooked”) most questions results leaned toward the negative. A combined 70% were neutral, disagreed, or strongly disagreed with the statement “the food tastes good”, and almost 50% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “I am getting a quality meal.”

Also, a whopping 58% of respondents felt the price for the food is not set at a reasonable standard. Apparently most people feel that the food is over-priced, and when you consider that most people are generally concerned about the overall quality of the food, it is easy to estimate that the dorm cafeterias may have a few problems on their hand when it comes to satisfying the students who eat there.

Most of the open-ended responses reinforce the implied feelings from the survey questions. People mostly desired a larger variety of food and fresher products. “More food options”, said one respondent, “more vegetarian options,” said another. “A lot of times the salad looks pretty old” said one person.

“Offer healthier cooking alternatives, less deep frying of everything” wrote one respondent who is obviously concerned that the food offered may not be very healthy.

There were other results that showed a positive outlook for the cafeterias. For example, when respondents were asked if they felt that allowing students to charge the meals to their UBills, a university charge card that can be paid of later, 96% said they felt it was acceptable.

While officials at the University of Iowa will want to look at these results, it should be noted that this poll lacks some serious elements that would make it a credible survey.

The most glaring flaw in this experiment is the simple lack of respondents. This survey only gathered 27 respondents. This is an extremely low amount of data, and it raises credibility issues with the results. While it is important to note the results, further research would be necessary to justify any significant changes.

This survey, should, however, be a concern for university officials who want to attract more students to the University of Iowa. If they can improve the cafeterias just a little bit, it may be a small step in bringing bright young students to the campus.